From: Wayne E Baisley (wbaisley@enspherics.com)
Date: Mon Oct 30 2000 - 21:50:36 PPET
Just in time for your holiday shopping, I have book recommendations!
This triad spans a solid radian or so of human experience, and lets me
introduce you to people you should know of. Oddly, I presently own none
of these books, a most temporary state of affairs.
1) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201485672/forkrecommendedrA
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler,
Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, and Don Roberts is a practical
and engaging trip through code-folding spaces (which is to say, fixing
other people's junk without breaking it). My friend Bill wrote one of
the chapters (the part of the book that's really over my head).
2) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0897897218/forkrecommendedrA
or http://info.greenwood.com/books/0897897/0897897218.html
Mortuary Feasting on New Ireland: The Activation of Matriliny Among the
Sursurunga by Alexander H. Bolyanatz. Alex lends me marvelous books
like Hortense Powdermaker's Stranger and Friend, and we have breakfast
at Bob Evans and talk about the state of baseball and Christianity.
"Contrary to conventional anthropological understanding, descent groups
need not always be wealth- or office-transmitting groups, but can be
principally feast-sponsoring groups. Sursurunga matrilineages are
activated by individual's combined participation in feasting events, but
individual's reasons for participating in feasts vary and often
have little to do with matrilineal group membership.
"This study of Sursurunga mortuary feasting shows that the analysis of
groups-in this case, matrilineal descent groups-is best conducted by
attention to the reasons that the individuals who comprise those groups
act as they do. The salience of group membership cannot be seen as
simply the blueprint for social life, but also as the outcome of social
life."
FoRK activities generally involve food, and even catfights, which is why
some of you won't ever read this sentence.
3) http://www.members.tripod.com/m-press/future_projects.htm
The Best from Helen Corbitt's Kitchens, edited by Patty Vineyard
MacDonald, was produced with a good deal of pleasant help from Stanley
Marcus, who was responsible for the subject line. I understand the book
will be in the N-M Christmas Catalog. If my fingers are counting
correctly, this is my mother-in-law's 3rd cookbook/biography. That
seems to be three more books than I've published. Hmmm.
Cheers,
Wayne
Cristóbal Balenciaga ~~ abacterial log cabins
Fecundity Without Feculence (TM)
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